[kbenson]

It's scary because HIPAA puts a lot of restrictions on what it can be used for and also puts a bunch of requirements in place for its safekeeping. My point is that once it's been shown that those issues can be dealt with profitably, others will see that as a new growth sector and follow.

Regulations are often implemented as a set of specific hard rules based on specific values (so it's easy to rule about them). The systems they regulate are almost always never so clear, and are based on competing gradients. Where these rules interact with natural systems (such as a free market) are often some of the most lucrative places for companies to develop new strategies.

Where some people see rules that prevent or kill existing businesses, other people see an opportunity for a new type of business. The whole financial sector is rife with companies that do just this. A simple example of how it could happen in this case is that there may be some non HIPAA covered data (that people may or may not think of as health data at this point in time) mixed in with the HIPAA data, and very carefully harvesting and monetizing that could be lucrative. Maybe later laws are updated to change this, or maybe it becomes the new normal.